Many types of blades exist for many types of applications. Blades are used for cutting biological materials of various types and for various applications. One application that is becoming quite prevalent is the cutting of human eye tissue in relation to a LASIK eye procedure. Here the blade is used in an automated instrument that is commonly referred to as a microkeratome or the like. The blade is used to cut a thin protective layer of corneal tissue from the patient's eye. Typically the cut is made such that this tissue remains attached to the patient's eye, and thus it is commonly referred to as a “flap.” Positioning the flap away from the underlying area (e.g., by a pivotal-like motion about the remaining interconnection with the patient's eye) exposes the desired portion of the patient's cornea. A laser is then used to remove tissue from the patient's cornea or to otherwise “shape” the cornea to address associated refractive errors. Thereafter the flap is placed back in its original position. Within a few minutes the flap reattaches to the patient's eye, without the use of sutures.
Conventional microkeratome blades are stainless steel. There are a number of issues with these types of blades. One is that the blade edge is typically examined under a microscope before being used in a LASIK procedure in an attempt to identify deficiencies in the blade edge. Various discontinuities (e.g., burrs) may exist along the blade edge based upon the way in which the blade edge is formed (e.g., mechanical grinding, polishing) and the material from which the blade is formed, as well as because of the vulnerability of the cutting edge after being formed. Certain deficiencies associated with the blade edge may adversely affect the performance of the blade in cutting the eye flap for a LASIK procedure. Another is that the blade edge of conventional stainless steel microkeratome blades will typically degrade after cutting a single eye flap. Nonetheless, a common practice is to use the same microkeratome blade to cut a flap on both of the patient's eyes in a single office visit where the LASIK procedure is performed on each eye.
Most microkeratome blades are mounted on a blade handle, that is in turn mounted on a head assembly of the microkeratome. How the microkeratome blade is aligned to the blade handle can have a significant impact on the blade's cutting performance when installed on the microkeratome. Certain conventional stainless steel microkeratome blades have a mark on a surface thereof where the blade handle must be optically aligned therewith. Other conventional stainless steel microkeratome blades have holes that extend through the body of the blade. The corresponding blade handle has pins that are disposed within these holes. How these alignment marks or holes are formed on the cutting blade may have an impact on the accuracy with which the cutting edge of the blade is disposed relative to a reference surface of the blade handle. This in turn will affect the accuracy of the positioning of the blade's cutting edge when installed in the microkeratome.
Other types of microkeratome blades have been proposed. One is diamond in which a crystal is typically cleaved to define a cutting edge. Another is silicon. Both isotropic and anisotropic etches have been suggested as options for fabricating a cutting edge for a microkeratome blade or the like from a silicon wafer. Notwithstanding the recognition of these various types of options in the art, stainless steel microkeratome blades still dominate the market. In fact, the inventors associated with the subject patent application do not have knowledge of any silicon microkeratome blade that is commercially available.
There are of course many other types of applications where a blade is used to cut biological tissue (e.g., hand-held surgical instruments, scalpels), as well as many other types of non-biological cutting applications. One or more of these cutting applications may benefit from the ability to effectively fabricate cutting blades in a batch-type process using an anisotropic etch. Certain cutting applications may benefit from the ability to more accurately align the blade's cutting edge to an alignment surface on a blade handle to which the blade is mounted. Still other cutting applications may benefit from the ease with which a blade angle may be selected for the desired application and then fabricated using an anisotropic etch.